Its been a while

Been a while since I blogged, not done loads to be honest. 10 days ago I was out on the mountain bike with Beth cycling into town. Beth was on the cycle lane/footpath and I was on the road. Decided to hop the kerb to get behind Beth (the kerb was 3 foot lower than the road) poor timing and lack of speed ended with me not getting my foot out of the pedal and taking a heavy fall landing with all my weight and the bike weight going through my left arm. Needless to say sore wrist, sore elbow, sore shoulder. Went to the docs and they seemed confident it was all soft tissue damage but now the muscle and joint tissue seems to have healed my wrist is still unable to take my full body weight and really aches in the middle of the joint although I do have full movement available. Not much in the way of swimming going on but hoping to swim in the Moselle River this week when I go camping in Germany. Will be a great chance to try out my Xterra Vendetta top of the range wetsuit which arrived about 2 weeks ago, along with some other goodies. Hope to see some of you soon at the IS Duathlon.

Why does the tri season have to start at 5 a.m?

Reality check, not

done a triathlon since the Vitruvian in September, forgot about having to get up at 5 a.m!!! So today was crunch day, how has the winter training gone? am I in any sort of form? My training has been going well but I knew I was off the pace for the swimming. Chatting as you do with the others in your start wave I predicted a 6:20 for the swim and ended up with a 6:19 by my watch. Not sure of the official splits yet but will need to add some time from climbing out of the pool to crossing the timing mat. Quite a long run to transition and I also forgot how hard your breathing after the swim. I had a good smooth transition and set off on the bike and within 10 meters was ahead of the others in my wave. The course has quite a long gentle climb at the start but once up I felt like I was going well and got some 53 x 11 action going on. A left turn and then the course climbs again and seems to keep climbing. After a fast decent and a chance to recover I felt like I was flying and had a glance behind to see no one anywhere near me. I also started to catch others from the earlier wave who started 5 minutes ahead. I was pushing hard on the bike and it was hurting a little but I knew if it was hurting me then it was definitely hurting the chasing riders. I arrived at T2 and racked the bike, a smooth transition and off on the run. That also was a wake up call, I've only ran off the bike once this year in training. I quickly found my feet though and was moving well, at the first dead turn I did a time check to have a look where the others were and things looked good. There was only one wave behind mine and I seemed to be ahead on time by a big enough gap. I ran hard on the second lap and crossed the line feeling tired. I had the 2nd fastest time of the day and no one beat me from the wave behind. So 2nd overall, very pleased with the result and very pleased to have my first triathlon of the year under my belt. My prize was a set of commemorative £5 coins by the Royal Mint for the 3 year countdown to the Olympics. Very nice and a nice change from trophies. All in a good day and glad I've raced now as before the event I was unusually nervous, letting the pressure get to me after lots of people telling me I was the one to beat having won the event before.